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Diadema Mexicanum
''Diadema mexicanum'' is a species of long-spined sea urchin belonging to the family Diadematidae. It is native to the Pacific coast of Mexico, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Panama. Reef ecology The coral reefs off the Pacific coast of Central America are thin and small relative to their counterparts in the Indo-Pacific and Caribbean. They are subject to periodic stresses such as El Niño events. In 1982–1983, 50 to 90% of the corals in the region were lost. A large increase in the population of ''Diadema mexicanum'' resulted and there was an increase in damage to the reefs caused by their spines. ''Diadema mexicanum'' is a Herbivory, herbivore and an important member of the reef community and plays a significant role in controlling algal growth. By limiting this growth they are capable of preserving coral by reducing competition for space and light. However, when the populations of sea urchins get too large their spines cause excessive abrasion to the corals and bioero ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Emanuel Agassiz
Alexander Emmanuel Rodolphe Agassiz (December 17, 1835March 27, 1910), son of Louis Agassiz and stepson of Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz, was an American scientist and engineer. Biography Agassiz was born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland and immigrated to the United States with his parents, Louis and Cecile (Braun) Agassiz, in 1846. He graduated from Harvard University in 1855, subsequently studying engineering and chemistry, and taking the degree of Bachelor of Science at the Lawrence Scientific School of the same institution in 1857; in 1859 became an assistant in the United States Coast Survey. Thenceforward he became a specialist in marine ichthyology. Agassiz was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1862. Up until the summer of 1866, Agassiz worked as assistant curator in the museum of natural history that his father founded at Harvard. E. J. Hulbert, a friend of Agassiz's brother-in-law, Quincy Adams Shaw, had discovered a rich copper lode known as the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emendation (taxonomy)
In zoological nomenclature, emendations are alterations made to the spelling of taxon names. In bacteriological nomenclature, emendations are made to the circumscription of a taxon. In zoology The change must be consciously made along with justification for altering the spelling originally used by the taxon author while describing the species. Any other spelling changes are considered to be unjustified. Valid emendations include changes made to correct: * typographical errors in the original work describing the species; * errors in transliteration from non-Latin scripts; * names that included diacritics or hyphens; * endings of species to match the gender of the generic name, particularly when the combination has been changed. The binomial authority In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sea Urchin
Sea urchins () are spiny, globular echinoderms in the class Echinoidea. About 950 species of sea urchin live on the seabed of every ocean and inhabit every depth zone from the intertidal seashore down to . The spherical, hard shells (tests) of sea urchins are round and spiny, ranging in diameter from . Sea urchins move slowly, crawling with tube feet, and also propel themselves with their spines. Although algae are the primary diet, sea urchins also eat slow-moving (sessile) animals. Predators that eat sea urchins include a wide variety of fish, starfish, crabs, marine mammals. Sea urchins are also used as food especially in Japan. Adult sea urchins have fivefold symmetry, but their pluteus larvae feature bilateral (mirror) symmetry, indicating that the sea urchin belongs to the Bilateria group of animal phyla, which also comprises the chordates and the arthropods, the annelids and the molluscs, and are found in every ocean and in every climate, from the tropics to the pol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diadematidae
The Diadematidae are a family of sea urchins. Their tests are either rigid or flexible and their spines are long and hollow. * '' Astropyga'' Gray, 1825 **'' Astropyga radiata'' ( Leske, 1778), extant **'' Astropyga pulvinata'' (Lamarck, 1816), extant **'' Astropyga magnifica'' (Clark, 1934), extant *'' Centrostephanus'' Peters, 1855 **'' Centrostephanus asteriscus'' ( Agassiz & Clark, 1907), extant **'' Centrostephanus coronatus'' ( Verrill, 1867), extant **'' Centrostephanus fragile'' (Wiltshire in Wright, 1882), Santonian, Maastrichtian, Danian **'' Centrostephanus longispinus'' ( Philippi, 1845), extant **'' Centrostephanus nitidus'' (Koehler, 1927), extant **'' Centrostephanus rodgersii'' ( Agassiz, 1863), extant *'' Chaetodiadema'' Mortensen, 1903 **'' Chaetodiadema granulatum'' ( Mortensen, 1903), extant **'' Chaetodiadema keiense'' ( Mortensen, 1903), extant **'' Chaetodiadema tuberculatum'' (Clark, 1909), extant *'' Diadema'' Gray, 1825 **'' Diadema palmeri'' ( Baker, 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coral Reef
A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups. Coral belongs to the class Anthozoa in the animal phylum Cnidaria, which includes sea anemones and jellyfish. Unlike sea anemones, corals secrete hard carbonate exoskeletons that support and protect the coral. Most reefs grow best in warm, shallow, clear, sunny and agitated water. Coral reefs first appeared 485 million years ago, at the dawn of the Early Ordovician, displacing the microbial and sponge reefs of the Cambrian. Sometimes called ''rainforests of the sea'', shallow coral reefs form some of Earth's most diverse ecosystems. They occupy less than 0.1% of the world's ocean area, about half the area of France, yet they provide a home for at least 25% of all marine species, including fish, mollusks, worms, crustaceans, echinoderms, sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herbivory
A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material, for example foliage or marine algae, for the main component of its diet. As a result of their plant diet, herbivorous animals typically have mouthparts adapted to rasping or grinding. Horses and other herbivores have wide flat teeth that are adapted to grinding grass, tree bark, and other tough plant material. A large percentage of herbivores have mutualistic gut flora that help them digest plant matter, which is more difficult to digest than animal prey. This flora is made up of cellulose-digesting protozoans or bacteria. Etymology Herbivore is the anglicized form of a modern Latin coinage, ''herbivora'', cited in Charles Lyell's 1830 ''Principles of Geology''.J.A. Simpson and E.S.C. Weiner, eds. (2000) ''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. 8, p. 155. Richard Owen employed the anglicized term in an 1854 work on fossil teeth and skeletons. ''Herbivora'' is derived from Latin ''herba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bioerosion
Bioerosion describes the breakdown of hard ocean substrates – and less often terrestrial substrates – by living organisms. Marine bioerosion can be caused by mollusks, polychaete worms, phoronids, sponges, crustaceans, echinoids, and fish; it can occur on coastlines, on coral reefs, and on ships; its mechanisms include biotic boring, drilling, rasping, and scraping. On dry land, bioerosion is typically performed by pioneer plants or plant-like organisms such as lichen, and mostly chemical (e.g. by acidic secretions on limestone) or mechanical (e.g. by roots growing into cracks) in nature. Bioerosion of coral reefs generates the fine and white coral sand characteristic of tropical islands. The coral is converted to sand by internal bioeroders such as algae, fungi, bacteria (microborers) and sponges (Clionaidae), bivalves (including '' Lithophaga''), sipunculans, polychaetes, acrothoracican barnacles and phoronids, generating extremely fine sediment with diameters of 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diadema (sea Urchin)
''Diadema'' is a genus of sea urchins of the family Diadematidae. Characteristics It is one of the most abundant, widespread, and ecologically important shallow water genera of tropical sea urchins. It is found in all tropical oceans, although is ubiquitous in the Indo-Pacific region, where it inhabits depths down to 70 m. However each species inhabits roughly separate areas of ocean. Speciation within the genus can be difficult to confirm, partly due to hybridisation, which is at least known to occur between '' Diadema savignyi'' and ''Diadema setosum''. The species vary in types of sea bed they inhabit, with ''Diadema savignyi'' inhabiting sandy beds and back reef where damaged; while ''Diadema setosum'' can also commonly be found among seagrass. Fossil record The fossil record of ''Diadema'' is extremely poor, consisting only of spines that possibly belong to the genus, some of which go back to the Miocene, 5 to 25 million years ago. Species list According to World Re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fauna Of The Pacific Ocean
Fauna is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is ''flora'', and for fungi, it is ''funga''. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively referred to as ''Biota (ecology), biota''. Zoologists and paleontologists use ''fauna'' to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess Shale fauna". Paleontology, Paleontologists sometimes refer to a sequence of faunal stages, which is a series of rocks all containing similar fossils. The study of animals of a particular region is called faunistics. Etymology ''Fauna of Madagascar, Fauna'' comes from the name Fauna (deity), Fauna, a Roman goddess of earth and fertility, the Roman god Faunus, and the related forest spirits called Fauns. All three words are cognates of the name of the Greek god Pan (god), Pan, and ''panis'' is the Greek language, Greek equivalent of fauna. ''Fauna'' is also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Animals Described In 1863
Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals consume organic material, breathe oxygen, are able to move, can reproduce sexually, and go through an ontogenetic stage in which their body consists of a hollow sphere of cells, the blastula, during embryonic development. Over 1.5 million living animal species have been described—of which around 1 million are insects—but it has been estimated there are over 7 million animal species in total. Animals range in length from to . They have complex interactions with each other and their environments, forming intricate food webs. The scientific study of animals is known as zoology. Most living animal species are in Bilateria, a clade whose members have a bilaterally symmetric body plan. The Bilateria include the protostomes, containing animals such as nematodes, arthropods, flatworms, annelids and molluscs, and the deuterostomes, containing the echinoderms and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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